Stephen Colbert is getting ready to leave The Late Show, and he is doing it the way late-night hosts often do: by turning the exit into a running joke. His final sign-off is scheduled for May 21, and in a late-April exchange from the top floor of the Ed Sullivan Theater building, Colbert answered questions from fellow hosts past and present as his run drew to a close.
The back-and-forth was light, but the numbers behind it were not. Colbert’s tenure is ending after a cancellation that shocked the industry and the host himself, and the exchange arrived while he was still inside the show’s machinery, in his writers room on a Friday afternoon in late April. The moment also reflected how closely tied the late-night circuit remains, with Jon Stewart, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and John Oliver among the hosts he heard from right after the firing.
Colbert said he was in his office after the on-air announcement when he flipped on his phone and found quick messages waiting from other hosts. “I came up to my office [after making the on-air announcement], and flipped on my phone and we did a quick exchange,” he said. Kimmel’s note, Colbert said, was the one that made him laugh hardest: “That’s a hell of an Emmy campaign.”
The questions themselves carried the tone of a roast in reverse. Jay Leno asked, “Have you ever thought about a road version of your best jokes for a live audience?” Colbert shot back, “Still waiting for the best jokes, Jay. But I can’t imagine never [having a] live audience again.” Trevor Noah asked whether there was anything Colbert had never been able to do because of a late-night show, and whether he saw himself doing it now. “Exercising. I think my wife has waited long enough. It’s time for abs,” Colbert replied.
Jimmy Kimmel brought a more absurd question: “Is it true that hospitals are sometimes forced to send patients who are too obese for their MRI/CT machines to be scanned at the zoo?” Colbert answered, “Yes, it is. And that’s your tax dollars at work.” Seth Meyers asked what answer from a guest would stay with him the longest, and Colbert pointed to one interview in particular. “I interviewed Keanu Reeves one night,” he said.
That interview, Colbert said, turned into one of the most watched clips from the show. He asked Reeves what he thought happened when people die. Reeves answered, “The people who love us will miss us.” For a host known for speed, punchlines and control, it was the kind of answer that lingers because it refuses to behave like late-night television is supposed to.
That is the sharpest contradiction in Colbert’s exit: a format built on immediacy and applause is ending with a reminder of what stays behind after the lights go down. The show spent 15 months without a live audience during COVID, and Colbert’s own account of his departure shows how much the crowd and the room still matter to him. His final night is set for May 21, and with it closes a run that ended not with a quiet fade but with a firing that landed like a jolt.
So yes, the answer to the question hanging over the Stephen Colbert Final Late Show is already clear. Colbert is leaving on May 21, and the final thing he seems likely to do is what he has done throughout the exit: meet a serious ending with a joke, then let the room decide whether to laugh first or think first.
